The Kite Runner

Kamila Al-Attia
English 12
1st Period
4/1/14
The Kite Runner In the Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini emphasizes betrayal and redemption through Amir’s cowardly act of standing by while Hassan is raped and Amir’s attempt to redeem himself by rescuing Sohrab. Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it. But doing this clearly does nothing toward redeeming himself, and thus his guilt endures. That is why he still cringes every time Hassan's name is mentioned. Hassan’s rape is the source of Amir’s guilt, which motivates his search for redemption, while stopping Sohrab’s rape becomes Amir’s way of redeeming himself. Amir betrays his friendship with Hassan by watching Assef rape him, and rather than intervene, he ran away. “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.” (pg.77). Amir says he aspired to cowardice because he feels the reasons he ran away were much worse. Amir suggests if fear of being hurt by Assef were the main reason he ran, that at least it would have been more justified. Instead, he allowed the rape to happen because he wanted the blue kite, which he thought would prove to Baba that he was a winner like him, earning him Baba’s love and approval. Hassan was the sacrifice Amir had to make to get the kite and ultimately to gain Baba’s affection. Amir’s search for redemption stems from his guilt regarding Hassan. That guilt drives Amir’s journey to Kabul to find Sohrab. “My suspicions had been right all those years. He knew about Assef, the kite, the money, the watch with the lightning bolt hands. He had always known….Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought.” (pg.192). Rahim Khan implies Amir can try to undo the damage he caused upon Hassan by going back to Afghanistan. Rescuing Sohrab from Assef is not enough either. Only when Amir decides to take Sohrab to the United States and provide his nephew a chance at happiness and prosperity that was denied to his half-brother does Amir take the necessary steps toward atonement and redemption.
The moral standard Amir must meet to earn his redemption is set early in the book, when Baba says that a boy who doesn’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything. As a boy, Amir fails to stand up for himself. As an adult, he can only redeem himself by proving he has the courage to stand up for what is right. In the end, Amir finds out that punishment is not what will redeem him from his sin. It is not even saving Sohrab. In order to atone for his sin and Baba's before him, Amir must erase the lines of discrimination he has lived with all his life by giving Sohrab an equal chance at success and happiness.